Vintage desk makeover
Recently I learned that sometimes the first crafty instinct isn’t necessarily the best one.
We have a sweet little vintage desk, which is part of a hand-me-down set of ’50s-era furniture we received when we moved into our house. It’s compact and classic, and it’s lived in so many different spots — from the entryway to the living room to both kids’ bedrooms.
When we re-did our daughter’s bedroom last winter and built a massive loft bed, we moved the poor ol’ vintage desk down to my office since she no longer had room for it. (Also, she was just filling the drawers with broken toys and other garbage. Sigh.)
In its new home, in my tiny basement office, it held my serger and the drawers were filled with extra bobbins and cross-stitch canvas. So many times I almost painted the whole thing a fun, bright colour — fuchsia, maybe, or tangerine — but couldn’t bring myself to do it. I don’t know what stopped me, exactly. I just knew I hadn’t come up with the right idea for that perfectly vintage desk.
It turned out I was smart to wait …
We recently decided to move my home office into a larger space (our former toy room/guest room/rec room), which meant my built-in desk was going to be dismantled and rebuilt. I could position the little desk in a way that it connected to the big desk — extending my work surface further into the room.
Instantly, I knew what I was going to do with it. Since my built-in desk is white melamine countertops with a dark stained base and legs, I would do the opposite for this little desk: white base and drawers, with a dark stained top.
I attacked the top of the desk with a palm sander until I’d removed all of the dated orange-y finish. It’s so satisfying to get down to bare wood and smooth your hand along the grain. Well, not satisfying enough to spend that kind of energy sanding down the entire desk, but certainly enough to do the top!
I often skip this next step, but I decided — since this was a surface I’d be using daily and I wanted it to look really good — to use wood conditioner (Minwax’s Pre-Stain Wood Conditioner).
I just used a clean sponge brush to wipe on a single coat, and then applied my first coat of stain about 15 minutes later. The idea is that it conditions the wood and allows stain to absorb more easily, but I can’t say it’s something I do every time. (It does make me feel like I’m staining the “proper” way, though.)
For the stain, I chose Minwax’s “Early American” — a nice rich brown — and applied two coats. Once it was dry, I did three coats of polyurethane (sanding lightly between coats) to give the desktop a shiny, protective topcoat.
Once the top was finished, I settled onto the floor and painted everything else white. Of course, it was my go-to white furniture shade (“Casement” by Fusion Mineral Paint). I left the drawers in and just painted the fronts, and it took three coats total to cover the original (stubborn) orange finish.
Looking back, I’m so glad I fought the urge to paint this desk a bright colour — as much as I LOVE painting things bright colours. The new two-toned look of dark stain paired with crisp white paint is perfect for this classic desk.
Who knows how long it will stay this way, but for now it’s exactly how I hoped it would look.
Thrift store lamp makeover
You guys know I love a good thrift store lamp. When I find a matching set, I will ALWAYS buy them so I can get my lamp makeover on. *waves hands in the air like I just don’t care*
Usually, they don’t have shades, but who cares because they’d probably be ugly old shades, anyway. It’s SO easy to paint a lamp — no matter how old or strangely-shaped it may be — and buy a new shade at Walmart for 10 bucks.
Like this …
… and if they DO happen to come with a yucky shade, you can always recover them like this …
So when I went thrifting a couple of weeks ago, I did a happy dance when I came across a matching set of two HUGE lamps. Sure, they were covered with a weird floral pattern, but WHO CARES? They were THREE BUCKS EACH, and this place tests their electronics and lamps, so I knew they worked. Score!
My Catholic conscience
I feel too tall when we all stand up. I wish I hadn’t worn low-heeled boots. There’s a sea of white and balding heads, and then me — looming over everyone, awkwardly clasping my hands and murmuring along when I can.
We’re back at church, and it doesn’t feel natural. Not for me, at least.
The kids are loving it. They regularly go to my mom’s church with her, and our son supposedly wants to be an altar server someday.
They happily follow the crowd of littles downstairs to colour during the gospel and homily, and come back in time for communion (which they desperately can’t wait to be old enough to receive).
We’re back at church because our son is seven.
Seven is the new age for the sacrament of penance and reconciliation — which was called “first confession” when I was a kid, and you did it when you were 10 — as well as first holy communion.
We have, admittedly, been slack Catholics over the years. But both kids are baptized, and I felt compelled to see our son through these next few milestones.
I can’t even explain the compulsion, other than it’s been instilled in me that THIS IS WHAT YOU DO WHEN YOU’RE SEVEN …
Is it Catholic guilt, maybe? That my husband and I both went through all of these same Catholic milestones, up to and including Confirmation in Grade 9? The fact that if you don’t do it when you’re seven, it’s trickier to do later on? I have no idea.
I registered, I bought the workbook, and I dutifully take him to Catechism — even that has a different name, now it’s “Family Formation” and there is homework. We practice the “Our Father” every night, and now even our daughter can recite the whole thing. I’m checking all of the boxes on the outside, but on the inside I’m uneasy.
I pray every night, and always have — first with the kids, and then later in the evening when I go sleep.
It’s not God that troubles me. It’s the church.
Nothing about our church attendance feels comfortable for me. It might look traditional, but a lot has changed since I was a teenager — the last time I attended mass regularly, every Saturday at 4 p.m.
The words are different here and there — enough to keep messing me up. I used to feel triumphant that I could recite the Apostles’ Creed, and now it’s like trying to sing along to a well-known song where they added a bunch of words. Somewhere along the way, the response to “Peace be with you” changed from “And also with you” to “And with your spirit.” I keep forgetting it, and my cheeks flush.
I can’t pretend to believe everything I’m supposed to believe. I narrow my eyes at the pro-life display as I walk in. I sit in the pew and kneel on the padded bench, but my body is tensed to leave — prepared to be outraged — if I hear anything about “marriage is between one man and one woman.”
Am I a bad Catholic because I’m walking through those doors with a heaviness that shouldn’t be there? Am I a good Catholic for making sure my child is “up to date” on his Sacraments, and never misses a Catechism class?
I’m certainly a lapsed Catholic — or am I no longer a Catholic at all? Maybe I really was excommunicated years ago, for sleeping in on Easter Sunday instead of receiving Communion in pantyhose and a knee-length dress.
The point is that I’m showing up, I suppose. I may be going through the motions, but at least my butt is in a pew — not home in bed, or under a blanket watching Netflix with the kids.
Maybe, over time, I will lose the discomfort and feel like I belong. Maybe our new church will feel as comfortable as the one I grew up attending, and I’ll get that sense of peace I used to feel in mass. Maybe it will start feeling “right.”
Or maybe we’ll get through the First Communion and stop going. Again.
Either way, we’re here now.
And that’s obviously part of a bigger plan.
Public speaking with a barf bag in my purse
I woke up on Friday morning feeling “off.” I couldn’t tell if it was just nerves or something more. I felt … tingly all over.
The feeling was familiar. Remember the infamous Victoria’s Secret disaster of 2016? (New here? TL; fainted in Victoria’s Secret then barfed in the food court in front of a zillion people.)
I joked to Darling Husband that it would be JUST SO HEATHER to get sick before a series of special, fun events. I was set to head to a girls’ night at a hotel on Friday, spend Saturday night with my sis, and speak at BlogJam 2017 on Sunday before heading back home.
(It’s a thing. A sucky thing. Previous public sicknesses have included the Hard Rock Cafe, the NYC subway, a London pay toilet, and a romantic overnight in a hotel room that was decidedly NOT romantic.)
I packed everything, curled my hair, sewed a new dress in case I felt like wearing it on Sunday (I did not), and left for Halifax as planned. I still wasn’t feeling quite right.
I was cold, so I turned off the air conditioner. Then the bottoms of my feet started to sweat in my Toms (well, they’re actually Bobs because I’m an old lady in so many ways and these are the comfy version of Toms.) I couldn’t take my shoes off while I was driving (or could I? I can never remember if that’s a law or not) so I tried to ignore the feeling.
I had just hit Dartmouth Crossing when I had what is now officially known as The Victoria Secret Feeling. Immediate hot-headedness. Darkening vision. Feeling like I’m going to faint. Read More
Laminate furniture makeover
When the Kijiji ad described the furniture as “really heavy,” my eyes lit up.
Maybe I’m just haunted by memories of the flimsy laminate armoires and bookcases we had in our apartment days — put together with an Allen key and a prayer — but heavy furniture is the dream. It’s the stuff that lasts. The stuff that doesn’t wobble like Jell-O when you try to drag it across a floor.
I contacted the seller and we struck up a deal. The price was right, it was promised to be “really heavy,” and I needed storage in a major way.
You see, I’m in the process of moving my home office into a larger space (our former toy room/guest room/rec room) and turning the old office into a dedicated guest room.
It’s been a ton of work, but definitely the right decision. The kids were hardly using their playroom since all of the “good toys” were in their bedrooms, and I was crammed into a 10×10 box with way too much stuff.
I pawned the kids off on a neighbour, helped my husband put down all the seats in the minivan, and we headed off to claim my purchase. We followed the Official Don’t Get Killed During a Kijiji Transaction rules — bring cash, don’t arrive alone — and before I knew it, I was looking at my new armoire. Read More
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Heather's Handmade Life 